Couch Potato: FX's 'Justified' worth the wait

Raylan Givens is all swagger.

The cowboy-hat wearing U.S. Marshal at the center of FX’s “Justified,” which premieres at 10 p.m. Tuesday, is the kind of cool customer who never gets rattled, even when crazed criminals are pointing guns at him. And in the first three episodes, that happens. A lot.

“You make me pull,” Raylan (played by Timothy Olyphant) tells one bad guy, “I’ll put you down.”

Olyphant — whom you’ll recognize from movies like “Scream 2” and “Live Free or Die Hard” and series like “Deadwood” and “Damages” — can really do no wrong in my book, so my love for this show may be a little biased. It probably doesn’t hurt that I’ve been watching previews and anxiously awaiting its premiere for months now.

The name is a little cheesy, but “Justified” is compelling and entertaining, with a great cast.

And, refreshingly, it’s the kind of show where the cops are actually smarter than the criminals and not two steps behind them, which we so often see in these kinds of police dramas.

In the pilot, Raylan is reassigned from the Marshal’s office in Miami to Lexington, Ky., which happens to be near his small hometown, after one of those bad-guys-with-guns predicaments.

His coworkers in Kentucky include boss Art Mullen, who used to teach firearms with Raylan at the Marshal’s training facility and is something of a father figure to him; Rachel Brooks, a hard-working, tough gal who can hang with the guys; and Tim Gutterson, a former Army Ranger sniper.

Their office is responsible for a number of different things, including witness relocation, prisoner transport, judicial protection and fugitive apprehension.

Raylan’s first case involves an old friend he once dug coal with and a girl he used to have a crush on.

That friend, bank robber Boyd (played by Walton Goggins, previously seen on FX’s “The Shield”), immediately establishes himself as a charismatic bad guy and a worthy adversary for Givens. I hope we see more of him in the future.

But there was something about that first episode that just wasn’t clicking, but I didn’t realize what it was until I watched the second and third episodes, which air on March 23 and 30.

Both of those episodes feature little to no scenes with Raylan’s former childhood crush, Ava, and they are much better for it.

The writers seem to be going for a star-crossed lovers vibe with those two — they can’t be together because she’s having some legal problems of her own — but I wasn’t feeling it. Ava is the weak link in an otherwise strong cast.

Olyphant has much more chemistry with actress Natalie Zea, who plays Raylan’s ex-wife, Winona. She doesn’t appear in the first three episodes enough. But when she does, she and Olyphant’s rapport had me rooting for a reunion.

The show is at its best, though, when it focuses on the cases and not Raylan’s complicated love life. So hang in there after the first episode, and you’ll be rewarded.

This show was worth the wait.